Aaron Frale's Blog, page 2

Drove Downtown in the Rain 9:31 on Tuesday Night to Ask Him Why He Wasn’t in Bed

Before we start, free fast paced Sci Fi and fantasy and free regular paced sci fi and fantasy. Also, the book above has a 50% off at B&N with this code: BNPSAMAK50. I wrote one of the stories in it and the short is a never released before short story in the Office Maxi universe that stars Maxi’s mom at the height of her power.

Also, another short story of mine is in the first Keystone Codex free Sci Fi magazine. You can get it for free on the Keystone Substack. The theme for the first issue was My Cozy Apocalypse, and that more or less describes most of what I write. Anyway, it’s free and meant as a way for indie authors to share audience. On with today’s email:

My spouse and I are going to take our son to his first concert. The Barenaked Ladies and Fastball. Back in the 90s, I enjoyed both bands, but will admit that I didn’t even realize they were still making albums and touring. I suppose many musicians tour and create music long after their hit songs are paired with the term “classic.”

I used to joke that Native American casinos were like elephant graveyards, rockstars go there to die. They play their songs to the stalwart fans who are there to capture a little bit of their youth after taking their evening pill from the pill planner and sneaking Metamucil into the venue after nostalgically remembering when the bag hidden on their person used to hold other substances. When I heard the Barenaked Ladies and Fastball were going on tour, I thought this is it, this is the 90s going through its death throws, but then I realized that it’s not a casino, but a big venue.

It was large enough to have a lawn, and for us to pony out a little more for the tickets so we don’t have to be on the grassy area in the back. When I was younger, the lawn in the back where the rockstars are like little ants on stage was fine. Now that I’m older, I look up such need-to-know information like proximity of our seats to the bathroom. I’m not quite to the point of sneaking Metamucil into the venue yet, but give it some time, I’ll be there. I mean, I already take fiber gummies each morning.

Now, my son already likes Fastball, we have this routine where he gets four songs every night before bed time and The Way and Out of my Head are regulars. In fact, if those songs ever appear on the charts again, I’ll know my son has had something to do with it. Whereas Barenaked Ladies, he hasn’t heard much of them. My spouse and I were fans, owned multiple albums, and she even sang to him a Barenaked Ladies song when she was putting him to bed. But admittedly, we hadn’t listened to them recently.

So, I decided to play some Barenaked Ladies while I cook, which sometimes equates to music playing while we eat (honestly, it depends on my son, he’ll sometimes hear the music and dance to it at the table. Other times he’ll say, “Alexa stop.”). While we were eating, we were wondering if the concert was related to a new album or something and a short trip to Wikipedia later, realized that there were many albums since the last one we heard, Maroon. 

Anyway, we decided to have a listen to what they were doing recently and had realized something. Fucked up people really do make the best art. I mean, I know that’s a stereotype, there are plenty of writers, artists, musicians, actors, and so forth who have great mental health and healthy relationships with their peers and others, but those people don’t make the news.

Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies fame wrote a lot of those songs that I loved. And he had his fair share of mental health, legal, and drug problems. Classic musician stuff. I’m not sure if he was kicked out of the band or left, but either way, he is no longer a Barenaked Lady. Now maybe the album we had chosen to listen to wasn’t the best of the post Steven Page era, but it just didn’t have the spark that got me listening to the band. That’s not to say it was bad, it was a good album, but sounded like any other album from that era of music. It was the difference between stadium filling music and perhaps local movie theater turned rock venue.

We tried Steven Page’s solo stuff next, and were immediately struck by how much the spark was there. We were like, that’s what we love. This is what got us into the band in the first place. But the funny part was that it was a little too out there. Nowhere near the level of John Lennon and Yoko Ono making weird noises for an hour and a half, but still, you could tell that being in the Barenaked Ladies reigned him in all the best ways.

While there are some notable exceptions of musicians achieving new heights in their solo career, a vast majority just don’t have the magic. Listening to Steven Page was like hearing Wings or John Lennon. They have their moments where you understand the genius they brought to the band, but that lone genius is almost always never as good as the collective.

I have a theory about this. A group of talented individuals like the Barenaked Ladies or The Beatles, where each member could probably have their own solo career, and would make decent music on their own, make something truly great when working together.

Groups of people working to a common goal always makes something better than the loan genius ever could. I don’t know if Steven Page would have shined so bright if he hadn’t had the others in the band smoothing out his edges. I think the same happened with The Beatles.

I think the same is true with television. There was something I knew to be true as a kid. The movie was almost never as good as the book. But then recently with TV series like Silo and The Wheel of Time, I’m enjoying them far more than the books. I think the reason for that is that a writer can only put so much into any given project (I’ll be honest that I sometimes am on my third or fourth book when I have ideas that would have been great in the first book). But a team of writers, as is true with most TV shows, can put their collective creativity to work and make something better than the source material.

I think the reason why television has the opportunity to outperform a book where movies failed in the past is rather simple. TV has more time to explore the world like a book. Movies must fit it all into an hour and a half to two and a half hours. TV can afford to explore all the most interesting parts of a book. Then add the power of collective creativity, and you get something better than the loan writer can do on their own.

The lone genius is a powerful myth in our culture, but a myth, nonetheless. The Steven Jobs of the world only achieved what they did because of the talented people around them. Robert Jordan’s wife was an editor, and I would guess had a lot of influence on his books. There’s even some question about how much was Einstein’s ideas and how much was his wife.

Just like Steven Page and the Barenaked Ladies sans Steven Page had something magical when they were the Barenaked Ladies. And yes, there are Beyoncé’s of the world and Michael Jackson’s whose true stardom didn’t come until they went solo. However, I’m guessing that they have surrounded themselves with talented people and what better way to be able to harvest all the top talent then coming out of a successful music act.

I’m not arguing that geniuses don’t exist, I’m just saying that they are better in a group then they are in isolation and that when we look at the success of individuals, there are people working with them to help them achieve that success and when we put on a pedestal the achievements of one individual, we minimize or in some cases miss the contribution of the people around them. 

With that being said, I wouldn’t be writing if it wasn’t for the people who helped me get here. I would like to name them all but the list would be long, and the email has probably already gone on long enough. And I’ll be honest, memory isn’t perfect, especially mine. I fear if I did make such a list, I’d forget someone. But thank you to everyone who has helped me over the years, if it’s a minor grammar correction to full story editing, I appreciate all of you. 

Books to Consider

The entirety of existence is collapsing. Luckily, the multiverse has Clara, Pete, Unk, and Misako.

Read Time Burrito 5 today!

Kore, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus, has never been so happy. 

Read Wrath of Persephone today!

An empire’s betrayal sparks a daring alliance. Destiny burns in the fight for freedom.

Read Last Ember of Azrith today!

In this tale of space opera and cosmic adventure, the Ambassador of a mysterious and ancient family must forge a path through chaos to overcome the terrible enemies that desire humanity’s destruction.

Read The Survivors today!

Zoe Calloway is about to unravel the secrets of time travel and her father’s mysterious disappearance.

Read Zoe Galloway today!

She is opposed by agents of the Confederation of Peoples Governments, who will do anything, even risk starting an interstellar war, to seize control and take possession of the asteroid.

Read Carrie Piper today!

The clock is ticking to stop a second asteroid from striking Earth, and Elliot Adams is humanity’s only chance.

Read The Aftermath Terra today!

Time Burrito 5

First off, a giveaway featuring strong women in sci fi and fantasy.

It’s finally here. The end of the series. Time Burrito 5 will be the last book (I think). I always thought to myself that Time Burrito will be my 72-book series. If I ever run out of ideas, I could just write another Time Burrito novel. With time travel, there is pretty much a never-ending supply of plot ideas. Look how long Dr. Who has been running, not to mention all the books in the universe. Pretty much a Time Lord in TARDIS or Burrito Vendor and Physicist can have limitless adventures.

But then I wrote Time Burrito 4, and I realized that Pete and Clara went through their emotional journeys. SPOILER ALERT (at least up to book 4), Pete earned his respect in the cooking community and found the love of his life. Clara earned respect in the Physics community and found the love of her life, lost the love of her life, found the love of her life again in a different body, and they saved the world again.

After that book, I realized that I wrote myself into a corner. I promised another book with a teaser ending, and didn’t have an emotional plotline for our characters to go through. Well, I kinda found one for Clara and one for Pete that make’s Time Burrito 5 work. What’s with this emotional plotline anyway? The Doctor doesn’t have to have an emotional epiphany every episode?

Yes, true, characters don’t always need to be going through some things or sorting something out, but I enjoy my characters having complex inner lives even though they may be in a novel with a cat on a flying space burrito on the cover. As a writer, I enjoy exploring people who aren’t perfect, but do the best with what they have if they are the hero and make poor choices based on fallacies if they are a villain. Because TB4 (that’s how they are named on my computer) had explored that inner life, I didn’t think I had any more to write.

I realize now that I’m just not a 72-book series writer. I enjoy beginning, middles, and ends too much to keep churning out books with the same characters. Misfits of Carnt will probably turn out to be my longest series only because there are so many characters but there definitely is an end in mind, I just have to get there. Not to mention, writers never really run out of ideas. For every book I’ve published, there are maybe about 7-10 that are only just a few sentences in an ideas folder, a few pages because I had to write it, or in one case I got through the first 1/3 before abandoning it. The point is that I’ll never run out of ideas. So, I just don’t have the time to write another Time Burrito novel because I’m bored.

That’s why I said Book 5 is the last one, maybe. Perhaps one day, I get the Time Burrito bug, and I just must write another one. Or maybe Time Burrito becomes a Tubi original (see book for joke), and I do write a couple more books because suddenly there is hot demand for Time Burrito novels. I will never say never, but I can say that I’m way more interested in finishing Office Maxi and Misfits of Carnt right now, so I completed the series in Book 5.

It will not end on a cliff hanger. There is no promise to write another one. And I feel that if you enjoy the series, it’s the best one. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever written.

The Complete Time Burrito Series (eBook bundle)The complete Time Burrito series!With great burrito comes great responsibility.$12.00Shop now

Books to Consider

The entirety of existence is collapsing. Luckily, the multiverse has Clara, Pete, Unk, and Misako.

Read Time Burrito 5 today!

The galaxy is engulfed in a fierce war. Four injured sailors stand together, watching ships dock and eagerly anticipate the return of their loved ones.

Read The Sailors Left Behind today!

In this tale of space opera and cosmic adventure, the Ambassador of a mysterious and ancient family must forge a path through chaos to overcome the terrible enemies that desire humanity’s destruction.

Read The Survivors Today!

Ways You Can Support Me

Before we start, a Sci Fi and Fantasy Giveaway and a survey to help me improve this mailing list.

People have been asking me this for a long time. What’s the best way to support you? My response has always been Amazon. The reason behind choosing Amazon as the best place to get my books was that when a book sells well on Amazon, it helps other people find it.  This used to work for a while. I’d publish a book, dump a lot of advertising dollars to prop it up for a week or so, and then the book would have decent sales for a bit and then be buried under the crushing weight of all the other books that are out there.

Those months of higher sales have been getting shorter and shorter and now are almost non-existent. It’s not hard to see why. There are more books than ever before. AI is writing them (though to what degree of success, I couldn’t say) in addition to hopefuls like me that it’d one day be a career.  Gone are the days of the solitary genius who writes a world changing book (none of mine fall into that category btw). The writer now must not only write a good story, but be able to edit one, understand marketing to be able to market the hell out of their work, and at least have enough artistry to make a good book cover or know what one would look like when they get it back from the cover artist.

All I’m saying is that in order to achieve success as a writer, it’s insufficient to merely write a good book. There are many other skills that go into being a writer and if you don’t nail them spot on then the consequence is being buried in the avalanche of work that’s being published. While I strongly believe that every writer could eventually find one million who’d buy their work, the challenge is reaching those customers.

Yes, I fully understand that not every book is equal. For example, I’m sure wouldn’t take long to find a published book where if the author was paid per spelling and grammatical errors, they would be millionaires (or thousandaires at the very least). There are also books with cover art that must have been sourced from a 2nd grade class and not the cutesy look at what my kid drew way, but they were digging through the dumpsters of elementary schools looking for cover art sort of way. I think those authors too could reach one million sales. They just have more work ahead of them than a person with a polished manuscript and fantastic cover art.

The subpar cover and error riddled manuscript can get better. I know because I had books published under those conditions. But I learned from my mistakes and sot to better myself. Overtime, anyone can improve if they put the time and effort into it. But even when the book is ready to be sold, the story is fantastic, the cover art is compelling, the description makes the reader just want to dive in and read more, the book can still not sell.

The simple reason good books go unnoticed is that people don’t see them. We live in an economy that is now driven by algorithms. Please the algorithms and you sell. Displease them and you are buried. It feels almost like being an ancient farmer trying to figure out how the gods make rain. Human sacrifice? That so last season! Praying and piety? Move over marketing gods. Throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks? Sounds about right!

In effort to throw the proverbial shit against the wall and see what sticks. I’ve decided to sell my books direct. What that means for me, I keep most of the purchase price (88% more or less on a $5 ebook, a much higher % on a bundle). What that means for you, is any book that is fully edited and ready for publication, it drops on my website first. Time Burrito 5 is there now. Misfits of Carnt 4 and Office Maxi 2 will be there as soon as it takes for me to finish writing them, getting them edited, polish up the edits, and load it to site. If this experimentation in direct from me goes well, I’ll continue to post books to my website way before you get them anywhere else.

Don’t worry, anywhere else will still exist too. They’ll be on Amazon, Google Play, B&N, and all the other places too. I’m just going to focus my advertising on direct sales for a while to see how it goes. And I can’t see how much I’m pleasing those algorithm goes unless I sell direct.

Also, in effort to please those gods, I’m going to start offering book bundles. I even have a few of them up already.

Before I go, I have a quick survey, and like all my surveys, there’s a little silliness as a reward for taking it. But with this survey, I’m going to find out what you want from this email list. It should help me write better emails because while yes, I’m here to promote my books, I want to give you something more for your reading time, so help me figure out what you want.

The Complete Time Burrito Series (eBook bundle)The complete Time Burrito series!With great burrito comes great responsibility.$12.00Shop now

Books to Consider

An ancient evil lurks under the city of Albuquerque and it’s coming for Caroline…

Read Playlist of the Ancient Dead today!

His silence was never empty—it was a weapon waiting to be unleashed.

Read Shattered Silence today!

Aaron and His Brief Encounter with Sportsball

Time Burrito 5: The Fifth Book! eBookAnnouncer: Time Burrito 5: The Fifth Book! Coming to an eReader near you after you hit that purchase button.$5.00Shop now

Greetings from the wilds of Montana!

Before we start, have some free Sci Fi and Fantasy books.

I don’t usually talk about my personal life, but I heard people enjoy reading that from their authors. Who is the person behind all these books? I would say I’m fairly average, good at some things and not at others. I’m very good at thinking, abstract reasoning, and all the skills needed for a writer, but I’m not good at sports.

In fact, I suck so bad at sports, I tried to avoid them much in early life. During soccer, I was the last kid picked. Younger brothers were picked over me, and we are talking the kids who are just good at being a target. I wasn’t even good at that. I had asked my parents to quit soccer so I could have piano lessons.

The bullying and bad memories during PE growing up in the 80s affected my adult life in that I don’t even watch sports. When I was in college, I’d watch horror movies in my room while my roommates watched football (one girl who was over grilled me in the kitchen about it because she couldn’t understand why I don’t watch football). Every single year, my wife and I have the same conversation at Costco.

Me: Why is it so busy? There are so many people.

Wife: It’s the super bowl.

Me: Is that happening this weekend?

Or my favorite was when we happened to buy a grill on Super Bowl Sunday:

Random Stranger in Costco Parking lot: A Traeger! I know who’s house I’m going to!

Me (after the stranger was out of earshot): That was so weird. Why would she come to our house? Did she just make a joke about stealing our grill?

Wife: It’s the super bowl.

Me: Is that happening this weekend?

My sucking at sports all comes from the fact that I have very little depth perception. Catching a ball is really challenging. My hand goes up too early or late, very rarely when it needs to. That depth perception thing also affects me while I’m driving, mostly when I’m turning. Because I have trouble seeing how fast objects are moving, it’s hard for me to judge if I have enough time to turn.

My wife refers to this as my hate of turning left (that would be right for all you UK folks). I’d much rather have a green arrow and have been honked at on more than one occasion for my caution while driving. I even had an asshole whip around me (nearly causing an accident) because it’s hard for me to judge things like speed and distance, and I wait till I know I can turn.

The funny thing is that the same dysfunction that makes me bad at sports and an overly cautious driver, may also affect my ability to edit grammar. So, when I said all the skills needed for a writer, I may have been exaggerating. When I read, it takes me a long time to comprehend what’s on the page. As a result, I’m slow at reading, and not very good at catching mistakes.

I’m so slow at reading, I’d be lucky if I could get through maybe 10 books a year, and even that is lofty. When my wife and I first met, I had hundreds of dollars of store credit at a used bookstore in Albuquerque, and she spent it all in less than a year (at my request, I certainly wasn’t going to use it all).

How do reading troubles have anything to do with poor depth perception? I’m pretty sure there is a short circuit in my brain with the visual processing centers. The reason I know this is because that thing that makes words seem more like a puzzle when I’m reading them, it goes away when I listen to audiobooks.

I can burn through an audiobook in the amount of time it takes to listen to it. I use up so many audible credits that we buy the bundles in addition to a high level credit plan. With audiobooks, I can “read” at the same rate as my wife (she does about 100 books/year), so it was never a comprehension problem. 

There is just something about my visual processing that’s not wired quite correctly that makes me bad at sports, drive super cautiously sometimes to the annoyance of others, and read at snail’s pace. I thank whoever invented Text-to-Speech, I probably wouldn’t be a writer without it (all my editing is done with it, needless to say I’m worse at homonyms than any other form of mistake). 

One last story before I let you go. One of my friends growing up was the star football/basketball player of my high school. Despite going to high school in the 90s, I was the nerd that didn’t get beat up by jocks. Mainly because the supreme jock sometimes would stop me in the hall to ask a Magic the Gathering question.

Anyway, we’d play DnD on weekends (think the kids from Stranger Things), and one weekend my football/basketball playing friend said, “Aaron, you’ve shown me a lot of your world, but I want to show you my world.”

We went over to his house which was a sports temple. His dad was a former NFL player, so of course they had everything for every sport. My friend tried to teach me basketball. After a while he got frustrated and said, “Aaron, you are really bad at this.”

I shrugged and said. “We all got our talents.”

We went over to my house and played DnD.

A couple of updates: I’m finally opening a store where you can buy direct from me. I only have a few products while I test it out. One of them is the brand new release of The Robin Hood of Couches. The book was one of my best stand alone novels, a murder mystery in the near future. 

I also made some predictions in the book about the future of AI and subscription based services in addition to other ideas of what the next 50 years may look like. I also experimented with what a better world may look like that reinvents what it means to work. Especially knowing that AI may cause there to be less jobs than people to fill them.

So if you want to help me out, or you want less of the money you pay for my books to land in the hands of the tech moguls, then consider using my direct from author store. I also plan to do a bunch of discounts and bundled 3 books. You’ll get 66% off what’d you pay anywhere else if you get the bundle.

Which brings me to my last announcement, Time Burrito 5 is finished! You can read it right now if you buy it directly from me. It’s also up for pre-order in the usual spots. I also have the Complete Time Burrito series up for direct sale for $12. All 5 eBooks for just $12. So if you want a deal and want to support me directly, you can now.

Okay last last announcement. Office Maxi book 2 and Carnt book 4 are almost done. Carnt book 4, I hope to release this summer. And Office Maxi book 2 will be everywhere 1/1/26 but direct from me sooner. So stay tuned and thanks for being here.

Looking for something to read? The Complete Time Burrito Series (eBook bundle) $12.00 Add to cart View cart Office Maxi 3 eBook Bundle $5.00 Add to cart View cart Time Burrito Paperback Bundle $50.00 Add to cart View cart Time Burrito 5: The Fifth Book! Hardback $30.00 Add to cart View cart Time Burrito 5: The Fifth Book! Paperback $20.00 Add to cart View cart

THE 5 SECOND BLINKING ESSENTIALISM SYSTEM

It seems that I’m missing out on an opportunity of creating my own buzzword system of self-improvement that will open the doors of corporate gigs where I can give motivational speeches that encourage a simplistic system that will leave the audience feeling good but giving them no actionable advice to improve their own life.

I can give them this visionary new system that would completely change their lives if they were independently wealthy and didn’t need to work three jobs to make sure they had the calories to survive each month. All I need is to string five or so words together and add a word like rule or system or mantra to the end that makes it seem like a person just does this one simple thing their lives will change.

If I just ignore the fact that mental health is sometimes hardwired or needs a holistic approach to account for environmental and other factors, I can promise that my system will change their life if they just do my 5 second Blinking Essentialism System. Their entire life will change for the better so long as they are born into wealth, have no significant mental health barriers that require clinical treatment, have a loving and supportive family, don’t have a criminal background, are perfectly fit and well-adjusted but sometimes think to themselves while they are on their third hour on the treadmill that maybe something can be better in their already perfect life to any outsider.

It’s perfectly clear that just about anyone can adopt my system for improving productivity, time management, super ultra libido, ripped totally badass muscles, and twenty-foot erections they can pop on command because they adopted my system but also works with women too because it makes their hair shinier. It’s time to give the simple buzzy sentence concept that will change your life.

THE 5 SECOND BLINKING ESSENTIALISM SYSTEM.

The concept is simple. Every 5 seconds we blink our bad habits away and focus on what’s essential. Let’s say you drink so much alcohol that you regularly wake up in gutters spooning a guy who smells like a bathroom named Ed (we are not sure how you and Ed end up in the gutter each time, but he is never there when you blackout, and it’s completely platonic) and the next time you look a bottle of beer or hooch you brewed yourself that made your cousin go blind, just blink. Then open your eyes on a glass of water or cranberry juice. Nevermind that if you stopped drinking your body will go into shock and need serious medical treatment and compassion from your estranged family, blinking is a powerful way to change your life in 5 seconds.*

*These statements have not been evaluated by any medical professional nor mental health professional, even the author’s neighbor wouldn’t even read the book as they lost interest when making light of a serious condition.

Pretty much anything that is hindering you achieving your full potential can be blinked out of existence. Let’s pretend you are working three jobs with $200,000 of student loan debt, $500,000 in medical bills, and can only afford an apartment that rats consider substandard living conditions, just blink all the problems away. Student loan bills? Blink! Poof gone! Medical debt! Blink Poof! Gone! Landlord with a tire iron at your door looking for three months back rent? Blink! Poof! Gone! Just use your daddy’s fortune to pay off all that debt and grumble about how poor people are lazy because they can’t afford most rental units without living in a closet with three generations of their family.

Don’t worry about them, they have golden tickets and other fables to give them hope of moving out of the closet one day. You need to focus on you and blinking as many times as possible to make sure nothing will hinder your ability for that busy schedule of yoga, hot yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, vocal lessons, weightlifting coach, self-defense class, philosophy book club, romance book club, jacked commando book club, and hair appointment and that’s just Tuesday’s itinerary. So cut out the irrelevant stuff in your life that you dread going to but do it out of commitment to a friend from high school that you never really liked, but agreed to go with them to a finger painting yoga Pilates knitting class because you went into a yarn store for the first time in your life and couldn’t really say no to them.

The next time you feel social pressure to do something you don’t want to just start blinking. The person you are trying to avoid will think you’re having a seizure and will probably leave you alone because cable taught us to leave people with serious medical conditions alone because they are baiting us for roving bands of migrants with switchblades, or was that the plot of a Police Academy movie?  

The point is that blinking when you run into trouble really does work and if it doesn’t, it’s your fault for not following the system. When you are investigated for tax evasion or are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness blinking the problem away really does work as ignoring major problems in your life is almost always the best response for those who are interested on ending it early. Who doesn’t want to be first across the finish line?

The next time you have marital problems, fights with your significant other, family issues, or trouble with something in your life, just start blinking. They’ll probably think you have something in your eye and drop the argument.

And remember to repeat this mantra every day, “If this self-help book doesn’t change my life, then I’m doing it wrong!” Never mind that simplistic solutions to the complicated process of being a human being almost never account for every situation a person can find themselves in, the obvious problem is you!

But don’t worry, I have a master course for $5000 that will get to the bottom of what’s wrong with you. It’s discounted to $3000 because I believe you have potential. Especially because I know that if you shell out $3000 you’ll completely ignore that I cobbled together a self-help system from bestselling book titles on Amazon, and use predatory tactics abusive lovers use to shift all the blame to their victims while giving them a slim glimmer of hope that if they just do it right, their life will change forever.

Or you can blink and that social media ad promising to change your life will not be there on the next refresh.

Thought this was funny? Share it with a friend or support me with purchase of Office Maxi. It won’t change your life! Guaranteed!

Maxi’s first week in a groundbreaking gamified workplace is disrupted by a snarling, drooling printer with large, pointy teeth and a murderous disposition.

After nearly becoming the red toner liquid refill during a killer inkjet’s afternoon snack, Maxi decides to investigate the mysterious company that’s more associated with slimes, zombies, and dragons than office work.

Luckily, she is equipped with an interface that is similar to her favorite RPG-style video games. For once, being a gamer will be good for more than just getting a couple bucks during her live streams.

Maxi normally enjoys LitRPG Urban Fantasy adventures, just not the dying part. Hopefully she can max her levels before the end is nigh and the beasties devour humanity.

Read Office Maxi today!

Dwarves Charging Over the Hill

I usually have the ending in mind when I start writing a book or series. Once the words came out for writing Office Maxi, the story took shape and had a life of its own. I usually try to get out of the way of my own stories and let them proceed naturally. I’ve seen screenwriters and authors alike attempt to force their will on the story rather than let it progress as it naturally would, given the circumstances the writer has laid down in the beginning, and when a character makes an odd choice for the sake of forwarding the plot, it pulls me out of the story where I’m thinking, “why’d they do that?”

My case in point is the Rings of Power series from Amazon. Overall, I like it, but it’s more just that I like the world, enjoy the characters, and will probably keep watching it, but I don’t love it. It’s not the Peter Jackson Lord of the Ring’s movies which my spouse and I used to watch back-to-back all three extended editions every so often until our son was born (we’ll probably resume this ritual of watching them when he’s old enough).

In fact, I’ll probably just watch the Rings of Power once, to say that I’ve seen it, and will most likely forget most of it twenty years from now. What makes Rings of Power so different than the Lord of the Rings movies to me is the hand of the writer is visible in the storytelling. There are moments where it seems the characters are not doing something because that’s what they’d choose to do, but rather the writer needs them to for the sake of plot.

For example, during the second season, Elrond attempts to convince his dwarf buds to help with the fight against Mordor and in a pivotal moment where he expects the dwarves to charge down the hill and save the day, they don’t come. Those involved with making it are satisfied with the scene because they are breaking expectations of the moment and surprising the audience, as allied armies usually do charge in when all hope is lost.

However, I think the writers were so convinced that the moment had to be there that they didn’t ask if it should. During that moment, the dwarves were dealing with their own civil war and their own king going mad and releasing the Balrog. There was enough on the dwarves’ plate that it would have made more sense for the dwarves to say, “Man, we’d really love to help you, but we got our own shit to deal with.”

To make the choice even more odd, Elrond’s bud, rallies his troops to fight with the elves right after they nearly all die from their own problems (one of which was losing the sun to grow their crops). Now, I know loyalty to a friend is important, but I just couldn’t imagine this beaten down, near starving populace is going to run off and fight for the elves when they got their own shit going on at home.

I mean we can’t even get Americans to agree on whether they support Ukraine or Russia, much less rallying the troops to go fight for them. So, when the dwarves rally anyway to go fight in the battle (a little late to the party but better late than never), it pulled me out of it. The plot driving the characters rather than the characters driving the plot, I think makes the difference between good and great.

I wouldn’t say that I myself am always successful at putting my characters in the driver seat, but I strive to do that with whatever I write. I sometimes have to erase whole chapters or delete entire scenes because I realized that the character wouldn’t make the choice that I think would make a pretty cool scene.

I feel Rings of Power focuses too much on this would look great on camera, or we are going to buck the norm rather than focus on what the character would choose given the set of circumstances. When Elrond went to his bud, he should have gotten a “I’m really sorry, but we can’t do that right now.” It would have blown up the entire sequence when he was waiting for the dwarves to charge down the hill but would have added some tension between him and his friend.

As a writer, you sometimes have to make those choices. The ones where you really want something to happen, but it’s not what the character would do, so you have to let it go. When I was writing Office Maxi, I had even made some choices like that, there were moments where Maxi said and did something she wouldn’t do and I stubbornly kept it in there, because I thought it’d make a cool moment.

I’m happy to say that I’ve eradicated all my dwarves charging over the hill moments. Now, Maxi, and her Office Pool all play the cards they’ve been dealt, and I believe it makes for a better story. I would say that this book is one of my best. It has a little bit of everything, action, adventure, comedy, emotional plotline, and the amount of weird I hope you come to expect from my novels.

Maxi’s first week in a groundbreaking gamified workplace is disrupted by a snarling, drooling printer with large, pointy teeth and a murderous disposition.

After nearly becoming the red toner liquid refill during a killer inkjet’s afternoon snack, Maxi decides to investigate the mysterious company that’s more associated with slimes, zombies, and dragons than office work.

Luckily, she is equipped with an interface that is similar to her favorite RPG-style video games. For once, being a gamer will be good for more than just getting a couple bucks during her live streams.

Maxi normally enjoys LitRPG Urban Fantasy adventures, just not the dying part. Hopefully she can max her levels before the end is nigh and the beasties devour humanity.

Read Office Maxi today!

Help Terry Save the World

In celebration of Office Maxi, I’ve created an interactive email game where you can help Terry. the AI HR Assistant at Maxi’s job, save the world. You will play the role of a new employee who is conscripted by Terry to search the internet for clues to a password that will disable a world ending computer virus.

Each email you get from Terry will lead you to an article, video, or podcast that will have a clue to solving the puzzle, but be warned, some of the links are dead ends, and some will even bring about the end of the world. Pending which link you click will trigger another email to you from Terry. Once you have gathered enough clues there is a link to guess the passphrase.

Of the winners, I even plan to give a random person a $25 Amazon giftcard, and some cool runner up prizes. Sign up to play the game here:

Help Terry Save the World!

Maxi’s first week in a groundbreaking gamified workplace is disrupted by a snarling, drooling printer with large, pointy teeth and a murderous disposition.

After nearly becoming the red toner liquid refill during a killer inkjet’s afternoon snack, Maxi decides to investigate the mysterious company that’s more associated with slimes, zombies, and dragons than office work.

Luckily, she is equipped with an interface that is similar to her favorite RPG-style video games. For once, being a gamer will be good for more than just getting a couple bucks during her live streams.

Maxi normally enjoys LitRPG Urban Fantasy adventures, just not the dying part. Hopefully she can max her levels before the end is nigh and the beasties devour humanity.

Read Office Maxi today!

Noblebright

Office Maxi is a Noblebright novel. NobleBright is a genre that I recently discovered that most of my stuff happens to be in. The easiest way to explain it is that if Game of Thrones assumes the worst in humanity and postulates that humans are awful at their core. Noblebright assumes the exact opposite of that in fiction. That doesn’t mean there aren’t bad guys or people who do awful things, it just means that most people try to do the right thing even when no one is looking.

To me, Noblebright more accurately describes the world than its opposite counterpart. I don’t mean to say that “bad guys” don’t exist. It’s just that even the worst the world has to offer is guided by their own morality system. Heinous acts often get justified as the right thing to do by the perpetrator for a variety of reasons.

For example, humanity has done terrible things to different groups of people throughout the ages, and its often justified because the oppressed group is categorized as subhuman or dangerous for humanity. When soldiers storm a village and execute everyone of fighting age, they aren’t doing it out of malice, but rather because they are told they are taking dangerous people out of the fight.

The same goes with political violence. When a group dehumanizes the other group and talks about how dangerous they are, it’s easy to pull it out of the realm of a disagreement, to the people are dangerous and they can’t be allowed to live, go free, etc. It’s not that the secret police of the oppressor are all bad, it’s that they are doing what they feel is right.

Noblebright postulates that good people do terrible things not because everyone is rotten at their core, but that people are easily convinced of something that isn’t true, so they act accordingly. Beliefs can be hijacked to make people do all sorts of bad things, but if we stopped to talk with them, treat them as a human, and do lots of therapy, maybe we’d find out why they are behaving the way they do.

That’s not to say that talks and negotiations will always work. Sometimes even the Enterprise needs to use their torpedoes. Star Trek is probably the most popular example of Noblebright that comes to mind. But Noblebright assumes even the worst of us deserve dignity and respect because it’s better for all. One simply must look at the justice system to see that the premise is true. Most countries that focus on rehabilitation of criminal behavior have low rates of people returning to prison. Whereas countries with the punishment model has high rates of people going back to prison.

What that tells me is that respect and caring for one another, (something that Noblebright assumes we all do in our core), helps lower crime rates over anything else, and makes it harder for the belief systems to be hijacked into doing awful things. I recall the story I heard of a high school student who had no intentions of joining a terrorist cell, but after he was treated with suspicion by his peers and being falsely accused of bringing a bomb to school (a charge the FBI dropped after an investigation), he went out and joined a terrorist cell. Why? Because during his darkest moments, when he thought everyone in the world was against him, a recruiter for the terrorist branch treated him with kindness and used that moment to hijack his belief system.

But what about those doing the hijacking? The people who manipulate others for pleasure, power, or who are just plain evil, the classic villain twirling their mustache? They still exist in the Noblebright universe because they exist in real life too. I prefer to think of it as the 9 out of 10 rule. Nine of ten people you meet will give you respect and dignity if you provide it to them. 9 out of 10 people who committed a crime won’t commit another one if you give them therapy and fix some of the circumstances that brought them to crime in the first place.

9 out of 10 people will strive to do the right thing based on what they believe to be true about the world. Then there are those assholes. The ones who don’t care what they do to other people so long as they get their power. There is also an argument to treat those people with respect too, they could have a mental illness. I’m not saying mental illness is the reason for every single person who’s done something bad, but I can say that it can account for a lot of it.

There are people because of wiring in their brain, who just don’t feel empathy. They learn to mock feeling it because of societal expectations, but the truth of the matter is they don’t know they are hurting other people because they can’t feel it. Now give that person a shitty childhood or tell them the only way they have value in life is by making lots of money, or give them a drive for power, and this person who feels no empathy will do terrible things, because there is nothing in their brain telling them not to.

A person who lacks empathy could saw off the leg of another person and feel no more invested in that moment than if they were sawing a block of wood. That brain wiring, preventing their empathy circuits from triggering doesn’t always make them a serial killer collecting body parts in their basement. It can also lead them to a life as a ruthless CEO or a politician. I’m not saying all of them are because remember 9 out of 10 are doing what they think of as the right thing sometimes for the wrong reasons.

The clinical definition of a person who feels no empathy is Antisocial Personality Disorder, or psychopath as most TV shows would call it. But whatever it’s called, it’s a real thing, you can put them in a brain scanner and show them images that would make most people squirm, and there is nothing whereas the empathy of regular people would go off the charts. So, they hurt people and don’t understand why it’s wrong. They simply don’t feel it.

And that’s just one of the plethora of mental illnesses out there where one person causes harm to another which is starting to account for a lot of those 1/10. So, the question is do we treat everyone with dignity and respect so we can help the 9/10’s or build our society because of the of those 1/10’s?

That’s what I feel is the core of Noblebright. Fiction that shows the possibilities if we focus on the 9/10s rather than shaping our whole world view because of the 1/10. It assumes that people will do the right thing, and the heroes are forged because at the core (at least 9/10’s of us) are noble and the future is bright. And those 1/10’s can be a part of the future too because even if a person is in rehabilitation for the rest of their life, they are at least in a situation where they aren’t harming anyone.

Office Maxi is Noblebright because fundamentally, I believe most people are good in the core even if they are led astray by politics, mental illness, societal pressure, circumstance, upbringing, or any of the other reasons a person goes off the rails. Despite that fundamental belief in the heart of the story, Maxi still finds herself in an imperfect society where she becomes a glimmer of hope for a better future.

However, she must fight every step of the way for that future (after of course she accepts her destiny). There is some resistance from her in the beginning of the story because she is stubborn, probably one of the most stubborn characters that I’ve written.

However, like most Noblebright fiction, when she finally does accept the role she has to play in the shape of events to come, she will be nothing less than a hero, and the book will probably be one of the most heroic stories I have ever written. If the Misfits of Carnt were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Maxi is an extraordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. So, if you’re looking for action, adventure, humor, and a badass heroine Office Maxi is the book for you.

Also book 2 is already underway and don’t worry, it will not affect the timeline for the release of Carnt book 4, which my guess is this summer, (in addition to Time Burrito book 5). If you enjoyed any of my books, this is the one you don’t want to miss.

Maxi’s first week in a groundbreaking gamified workplace is disrupted by a snarling, drooling printer with large, pointy teeth and a murderous disposition.

After nearly becoming the red toner liquid refill during a killer inkjet’s afternoon snack, Maxi decides to investigate the mysterious company that’s more associated with slimes, zombies, and dragons than office work.

Luckily, she is equipped with an interface that is similar to her favorite RPG-style video games. For once, being a gamer will be good for more than just getting a couple bucks during her live streams.

Maxi normally enjoys LitRPG Urban Fantasy adventures, just not the dying part. Hopefully she can max her levels before the end is nigh and the beasties devour humanity.

Read Office Maxi today!

10 Ways Corporations Can Increase Their Productivity

In celebration of Office Maxi, here are 10 ways corporations can increase their productivity.

Gone are the days of mugs and watches convincing people that their soulless, thankless, job is worth 40 hours of their max effort. It’s time to think of new strategies to motivate the workforce for nextgen employees.

If regular carpet cleaning bills aren’t in the budget, the company can always use the tried and true method of employee motivation, making the job not suck. Why rely on pizza parties and employee of the month plaques when Squid Gamified Metrics can really bring some fire to the workplace (both figuratively and literally)? Creepy figures in pink jumpsuits with microphone heads and revolvers could stand at the end of every cubicle row. Nothing will motivate those workers like playing the iconic tension building music from the series after announcing the lowest performer will be eliminated.If dystopian visions of employee performance management don’t fit the business model or illegal in the country of operations, then down on their luck celebrities can be used as motivational factors. Instead of telling an employee they did a good job, P Diddy can say, “P Diddy says you did a good job.” It’s a win for everyone, P Diddy needs the work, and employees will like the pat on the back.If exploiting celebrities with dubious history isn’t the style of the company, then Pokémon could be used as a motivational tool. Not the cards or the digital versions, real Pokémon, just get fire insurance when Charizard blows up half the factory floor.If Piccachu seems a little too high maintenance for you or the budget can’t handle the PETA raids for animal rights violations for all the pokécritters locked in cages in a dingy basement, the real way to put a zap in your workforce is literally zapping, with shock collars, cattle prods, or something. I mean humans do it with animals all the time, must be perfectly okay for people.When the FBI raids the business for human rights violations, it may be time to go back to those traditional performance encouragement tools like gift cards… for lingerie stores because coffee is so boring and maybe and Adult Video or two.Since sexual harassment isn’t in style anymore then maybe hire long winded managers to tell irrelevant stories about how lazy all the employees are. “When I was your age, college only cost $600, and I paid for it working part time at McDonald’s and a used car was only $200 and rent was only $15. Unlike your lazy ass who works three jobs to afford the $2000 in rent paying off that $100,000 in student loan debt and takes public transportation with the rest of the bums who can’t afford a $40,000 piece of shit on wheels held together by tape and faith.”If the collapse of the American Dream is not the message the company is going for then maybe illicit substances will motivate like POTlucks or LSD Parties. Nothing says performance like employees licking the walls or jumping from the 10th story window because they imagined a real dragon.If wrongful death lawsuits don’t fill those company sails, then reward employees with Imagine Dragon poetry writing competitions where 95% of the poems must be composed entirely of Imagine Dragon song titles or lyrics. Here’s last year’s grand prize: Eyes closed: imagine a dragon with natural radioactive bones. Thunder demons follow you in your corner. On top of the world gods don’t pray. Whatever it takes enemy believer. I bet my life walking the wire, children of the sky next to me. Wrecked warriors. I’m so sorry. Wake up.If band references that will be completely lost on younger generations aren’t doing it, then hire the serial killer from SAW to design “productivity rooms” that are macabre escape rooms where sawing limbs off seem like a better option of the tedium of yet another spreadsheet.

Thought this was funny? Share it with a friend or support me with purchase of Office Maxi.

Maxi’s first week in a groundbreaking gamified workplace is disrupted by a snarling, drooling printer with large, pointy teeth and a murderous disposition.

After nearly becoming the red toner liquid refill during a killer inkjet’s afternoon snack, Maxi decides to investigate the mysterious company that’s more associated with slimes, zombies, and dragons than office work.

Luckily, she is equipped with an interface that is similar to her favorite RPG-style video games. For once, being a gamer will be good for more than just getting a couple bucks during her live streams.

Maxi normally enjoys LitRPG Urban Fantasy adventures, just not the dying part. Hopefully she can max her levels before the end is nigh and the beasties devour humanity.

Read Office Maxi today!

Is That Printer Eyeing You?

It’s finally here! Office Maxi is now available on pretty much every online realtor including most local library apps! Office Maxi was written while book 3 of Misfits of Carnt was at the editor. It was meant to be a one-off novel that I wrote for the audiences at Royal Road. After the Misfits of Carnt were picked up by Podium for the audiobook versions (which I maintain is the best way to experience my work), I got exposed to a bunch of LitRPG, which I mistakenly thought my Misfits of Carnt novel was a part of because of the copious amount of DnD references and the basic form of adventuring party style characters.

However, after devouring a couple of LitRPG titles from Podium in audiobook (which is my preferred reading method), I realized that the Misfits of Carnt was missing a crucial element in many LitRPGs: a functional game system. LitRPG and Gamelit are exactly as they sound, the novelization of the popular RPG genre of most video games and dice versions.

A LitRPG typically has a mechanic in the novel that could very easily be converted into an RPG or video game (and I’m sure the authors in that genre would be living their inner most fantasy if that ever happened to one of their works). He Who Fights with Monsters, one of the most successful LitRPGs that I sampled when I was doing my survey of the genre, has a main character with a game interface that’s explained as magic allowing him to interact with the world. So, the novel reads as if he is a player in a video game.

Game mechanics to LitRPG is what magic is to fantasy. In fantasy, there is always some explanation about how magic works. In Misfits of Carnt, there are harmonies in the universe that wizards can tap into with their singing, thus having to sing to cast spells. In LitRPG, there is some sort of interface that gamifies the novel.

Wanting to write a proper LitRPG with a game mechanic, I had to think of a world where the main character will have a game interface and an RPG like system that helps them interact with the world. I also didn’t want to do something that’s been done before. And to my knowledge, there weren’t any office based LitRPG. While the office that fights monsters isn’t anything new in the sense of Buffy the Vampire Slayer extended universe had corporate monster fighting in Angel. I’m certain there are none with stats and abilities that uses job titles in the Class system.

When I first started writing, I realized that my strong female protagonist novels were starting to outweigh my male ones, and decided that the name of our main character was Office Max. I got about 13 chapters into writing it when I realized that there was a store chain called Office Max, and I don’t enjoy being sued, so I decided that the easiest solution was changing the MC to female.

Maxi allowed me to keep the pun on the LitRPG trope of maxing the main characters power and Levels (Office Maxi), but also get the main character’s name and the setting in the title. It’s a two-word title pulling triple duty that has no relation to the store chain. Thus, why another strong female lead when I really tried to write a male one this time around.

In order to really put this novel in the home of LitRPG and Gamelit, I also needed a system that functioned like an RPG but also used corporate buzzwords companies use to convince a person that their job doesn’t suck when by any objective measures the company is an awful place to be.

I wanted to spotlight how some companies forget the human element and treat their employees like parts in an incomprehensible machine. The book needed to have the ridiculousness of the Office but the sense of possibility of Star Wars. Office Maxi needed to be recognizable to anyone who ever had a job that made them roll their eyes but also have a sense that there is something more than the never-ending tedium of the modern workplace all with a game system interface.

That’s why I went with stats like Adaptability and Ambition rather than say Strength and Intelligence. The skills needed to have a tree where a person could be fixing your printer and another skill for killing the coffeemaker that attempts to use you as an afternoon snack. I also had to write moments into the book where absurdity of corporate policy conflicts with reality as large corporations sometimes fall victim too.

I needed something that a worker could read and be amused by my take on the absurdity of some corporate cultures, but also enjoy the adventure of a person who finds that there is an entire alternate reality in our world much like Harry Potter finds out there is a school for wizards in the mundane world.

I feel the combination of corporate culture, game interface, and Maxi’s discovery of herself throughout the book mashes it into a unique story that will thrill those who love LitRPG for the game mechanics, but also thrill those who are just there for the story and skip over reading Maxi’s character sheet and quest rewards.

If it’s your first time with a LitRPG or you are a longtime fan of the genre, I feel this story will have something for you. If the Office and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a child together, it would be Office Maxi raised on World of Warcraft.

If you’re looking for an MC to power game her way to the top, or a story about a mysterious company with secrets personal to our main character, this story is for you. If you ever felt like a square peg in a round hole at your job, this story will resonate with you.

Without further ado, nab yourself a copy of Office Maxi.

Maxi’s first week in a groundbreaking gamified workplace is disrupted by a snarling, drooling printer with large, pointy teeth and a murderous disposition.

After nearly becoming the red toner liquid refill during a killer inkjet’s afternoon snack, Maxi decides to investigate the mysterious company that’s more associated with slimes, zombies, and dragons than office work.

Luckily, she is equipped with an interface that is similar to her favorite RPG-style video games. For once, being a gamer will be good for more than just getting a couple bucks during her live streams.

Maxi normally enjoys LitRPG Urban Fantasy adventures, just not the dying part. Hopefully she can max her levels before the end is nigh and the beasties devour humanity.